Mathieu van der Poel is champion of the world! Becomes first rider to win both cyclocross and road World Championships
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel has been crowned world champion for 2023 after one of the most incredible World Championship road races seen in many years, surviving a late crash to become the first man to win both cyclocross and road World Championships.
As the longest race of the week, this will be the only one that will start in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. The riders are set to ride 272 kilometres through the hilly fields, crossing from Edinburgh to Glasgow where they will find the final circuit where the race will be decided.
Nine riders went up the road after a fierce battle early on, Owain Doull, Matthew Dinham, Harold Tejada, Kevin Vermaerke, Patrick Gamper, Rory Townsend, Ryan Christensen, Krists Neilands and Petr Kelemen.
After that though, the race was neutralised for almost an hour due to a group of protesters blocking the road.
By the time the race reached the Glasgow circuit, the lead of the breakaway had been slashed drastically to under four minutes by a rampant peloton that was already riding full gas, despite the fact there was still around 140km to go.
With just over 130km to go, the first of the favourites made an attacking move as Julian Alaphilippe launched a jab. Although he was quickly brought back, a counter from Mattias Skjelmose, Lorenzo Rota and Tobias Johannessen did gain a gap from the peloton.
Belgium came to the front of the peloton in response to this and around 10km later the trio had been reeled back in.
Just under 100km to go, after the likes of Peter Sagan and Kasper Asgreen had withdrawn, reigning champion Remco Evenepoel took to the front of the peloton and put on a mini acceleration.
Although none of the properly thinned peloton were able to ride clear, the constantly brutal pace at the front was seeing plenty of riders drop out the back with the break caught with over 80km still to go.
With just over 70km to go it seemed like the race-winning move had potentially gone clear. Seven riders in total, including the four pre-race favourites Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Mads Pedersen and Tadej Pogacar.
Surprisingly though, there was a lack of cohesion between the leaders. As the chasing group began to get back into touching distance, Pedersen relaunched his attack, keeping the pace high but he too was brought back.
The Belgian duo of Evenepoel and van Aert were trying to double the rest of the favourites, attacking in turn with Pogacar always quick to follow.
When the rain began to fall, just over 50km to go, Alberto Bettiol attacked and actually managed to gain an advantage of over 30 seconds.
A nasty crash for Jhonatan Narváez ruled him out of contention and at 30km to go, the situation was Bettiol a lone leader, 19 seconds ahead of a chasing quartet of Pogacar, van Aert, van der Poel and Pedersen. With a further chasing group 33 seconds back.
With just over 20km to go, van der Poel made his big move, catching and passing Bettiol and riding clear from all his rivals.
The trio of Pedersen, van Aert and Pogacar weren't exactly working together smoothly in the chase behind and soon the Dutchman had pushed out an advantage of over half a minute.
Coming around one of the many corners, van der Poel slipped out and slid across the deck damaging his shoe and visibly ripping his clothing. In a dramatic moment, the Dutchman rushed to get to his bike and remounted before his rivals had closed the gap.
With no team radio in the race, the chasing trio would never have even known anything had happened to van der Poel. Despite the crash, by the time he reached 5km to go, van der Poel's advantage had grown to 1:35.
There was no stopping van der Poel from a historic first, road World Championship, ending the long wait for a Dutch winner.
In the battle for the rest of the podium it was van Aert that stole a march to seconds with Pogacar beating Pedersen in a s
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Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- any rider less than 25 whether they are really ready for the position of leadership of GT is probably not the case. I think Pogi himself suffered when he was defeated by Jonas in the TDF twice. But that would be the team's job to ensure support so that they can bounce back. It requires a team and time to get back up and win after getting knocked down.abstractengineer07-11-2026
- I'm very glad he got the big late Quickstep Vuelta win and I hope he has a few left for Euskaltel-Euskadi.flyer07-11-2026
- My memories of Ivan Basso aren't good but I liked his sister Elisa ok.flyer07-11-2026
- I'm picking .... .... Never mind 🫥flyer07-11-2026
- If Tiberi has a better and more consistent 2027 I somehow doubt it will be because of this victorious warning. Unless his preparation has been off, cycling isn't football.flyer07-11-2026
- Love this guy. He is such a pure racer.mij07-11-2026
- Fair enough. Everyone’s entitled to one and I respect yours! Nothing wrong with being a one week and GT guy if that’s his vibemij07-11-2026
- LOL...it's a predetermined finish ! N one is 'clashing' at these exhibition crits!frieders307-11-2026
- Surely the UCI and the race organisers have a responsibility to ensure the best medical care is available to riders when incidents like this happen. All very well pushing for global expansion but not so good if riders lives are put at risk because medical support is not up to scratch.Andy12306-11-2026
- Well it clearly helps that this was Pidcock's own car, no?Occam06-11-2026
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⬇️ Goes solo ⬇️ Crashes on a corner ⬇️ Gets back up ⬇️ Extends his gap to +1min How @mathieuvdpoel 🤩 #GlasgowScotland2023
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